This has been a long thread, but I assume that you know that wheat is one of the eight allergens and by law, if used as an ingredient, it must be listed as such, or in an allergen statement....as others have mentioned, a lot.

And as I said most companies will disclosed a share facility or shared equipment, although not required by law, yet.

If a product bothers you, don't buy it again. It won't be the death of you, I promise.

It can only be assumed that manufactures of gluten free products are well aware of the law and it's consumers. I think your concerns are exaggerated.

Take a break from this thread and do some reading. Let's wrap this one up for a while.

The ingredients do not tell you the product was manufactured in a facility that also manufactures non gluten free products. Read my last post.

Manufactures are not required to list the possibility of cross contamination. If an individual is highly sensitive, they may have to call the manufacturer to determine if there is a cross contamination possibility. Manufacturing processes change on a regular basis. A site that sells products from a variety of manufacturers is not required, nor would they have the resources to constantly check with manufacturers about the potential of cross contamination for each product.

If a person is sensitive to low levels of cc, it is up to that person to investigate and determine whether a product is safe for them. If you want that level of information, you are going to have to do it yourself. . . or . . . don't buy any processed food.

Nobody here is trying to make you eat corn. I don't think any of us are going to convince you that corn is OK and quite frankly, I'm OK with that. The only reason I am still responding in this thread is for any other member who comes along, although why they would want to wade through 5 pages of this, I do not know.

..I expected the information on the celiac site to be up to the minute accurate and I don't think it is, ......

I started researching celiac ~8-10 yrs ago. Many others commenting have long experience as well.

I think your opinion of this forum & this site will change over time. Don't give up on us because of this disagreement over a 1man-society's misguided assertions. (I did prev show he's mixing cc worries w/ zein intolerances/allergies)

CC (cross-contamination) IS a very common topic here. An entire category was created a while back called "Super Sensitives . ..." and they're the ones most affected by cc. To me that shows that CC is taken very seriously here.

Anything can be CC'd.

Sorry the DH is hitting so hard. There's a big learning curve on what's safe for you specifically. It sucks & it can be hard but it can be done. Eating as simply as possible (low # of ingreds) combined w/ keeping a food/symptom diary is a proven method to get where you need to get. I don't eat anything w/ a couple inches of ingreds but only because 1 or 2 affect me. Finding the 1 or 2 while eating longlist processed foods approaches 'needle in a haystack' status.

If specific corn chips affected you, you could check w/ fresh corn you husk yourself to elim cc as an unknown. Or another brand of chips. Or organic ones. Or not try any for a while.Unfortunately, this is often the process new celiacs have to go through. There are several on this forum who are doing it right now (unless I'm seeing new posts on old unrecognized threads)

Read some in the "Coping..." category & "Other Intolerances..." as well as other categories & you'll find ppl you can relate to, i'd bet.

Not that ALL celiacs have the extra food issues, but the ones that do have reason to spend more time online, perhaps skewing some perceptions of how common soy/casein/corn/canola issues are for the average celiac.

I hope you stick around & maybe start a food/symptom diary. There are literally 100s of ppl who post regularly who have either been through it or are going through it and will help in any way they can.

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>>>>>>> tom <<<<<<<

Celiac 1st diagnosed as a toddler, in the 60s. Docs then, between bloodletting & leech-tending, said "he'll grow out of it" & I was back on gluten & mostly fine for 30yrs.

When I was first diagnosed my Gastroenterologist suggested that I not eat corn of any sort for a year approx. NOT because of a gluten issue but because it can be an irritant to some individuals and he felt I would heal better without the added irritation. He's a brilliant man, so I did what he said, and he was right! (ofcourse he was, haha so far he's amazing in my eyes ) He also suggested I go straight to whole foods, nothing or very little processed foods--salad dressings things of that sort with very few ingredients. His point was to get back to basics, start from the beginning and build from there. I had to keep a log and figure out what I handled well and what I didn't. If it didn't agree I didn't eat it anymore. Simple process I must say. He also taught me that when reading a label if I can't pronounce it or am unsure about it then don't eat it, I still live by that. Any question about an ingredient in my mind and I won't touch it--this is my personal preference. I can't rely on anyone but myself to keep me healthy, and I wouldn't want it any other way. My suggestion would be to do just as I did--get back to the basics, keep track, and learn to make some of your favorite things you enjoyed before but gluten free. This get so much easier with time, but us gluten-free-ers can't depend on anyone but ourselves to ensure we're eating healthy for each of our individual selves. What I need and what others need nutrition wise can be on opposite ends of the spectrum, and we can't expect a company to pin point merchandise to each of us specifically, that would be unrealistic, but it's very realistic for each of us to determine our own needs and make appropriate judgements from there! Good luck to you! I hope you feel better soon!!!

1342906824[/url]' post='812528']Scott, on the celiac.com website you list corn as an acceptable food on a gluten free diet, with no mention that it may not be appropriate for some people. You say: "In any case, as far as we know, corn does not seem to cause harm to celiac patients."

Would it hurt to say that corn may be harmful to some people? Do you see what I'm saying? I'm coming to you for current, accurate information and making a blanket statement that corn does not seem to cause harm, etc. is absolutely not accurate across the board.

Corn IS acceptable on a gluten-free diet. So are sorghum, buckwheat, lupine, amaranth, etc. But they are not acceptable across the board. Corn and rice are the only gluten-free grains or grasses that I do not have some sort of reaction to; I am very sensitive. Sorghum, buckwheat, lupine, etc. make me feel like a sick dog's excrement. So should there be a disclaimer for ALL things containing gluten-free grains and grasses? No. I use my brain. For the new Celiac, there's no reason to be alarmist. You don't automatically strip your diet of things that MAY be a problem. If you don't feel better on a gluten-free diet, THEN look into what may be other culprits. NO food is acceptable across the board. You can be allergic or intolerant to anything that's consumable. You simply have to listen to your body and do what is right for yours. This is a wonderful forum for getting ideas on what else to explore when there are further issues beyond wheat, barley, and rye. And a big part of that is because of the wide range of digestive experience.

How do you know corn alone does not cause a celiac reaction? If you know that for a fact please publish your research. Until then I prefer to avoid corn until I can check the research of 'the product guy".

Sorry, but it is not up to us to disprove a wild claim...since it is you who is making the claim that corn gluten could be harmful to celiacs, you must provide the supporting research to back this claim up. The fact is that the vast majority of diagnosed celiacs, including myself, heal up just fine and get healthy again while including corn in their diets, which is why corn is considered safe for most celiacs.

Also, throughout this site the "Gluten-Free Diet 101" article listed (see Celiac.com's home page "The Gluten-Free Diet" box):http://www.celiac.co...Free/Page1.htmland throughout this entire forum, in the Frequently Asked Questions area, and in that article it says:

Other Food SensitivitiesMost people who begin a gluten-free diet experience almost immediate relief from their symptoms. However, many people experience gluten-like reactions to other foods, and often suspect that their food was contaminated by gluten. As it turns out, many people who experience such reactions may in fact have additional food sensitivities. Some of the most common food sensitivities include, dairy/casein, soy, corn, sugar, nuts, shell-fish and processed or fatty foods. While many people report that they are able to add these foods back into their diet after they have established a gluten-free diet for many months, and after their intestines have had time to heal, it is up to you and your doctor or nutritionist to determine which foods may be causing you trouble. The 'elimination diet' is often recommended for determining what additional food sensitivities you may have. Ask your doctor if the elimination diet is right for you.

Food DiaryIt is important to keep a food diary, especially when first initiating a gluten-free diet. Making notes of the foods you eat and the reactions you have to thefoods you eat, and how you feel that day, can give you more insight asto which foods are hurting you and which foods your body can easily digest.

So I'm not sure what is not clear about Celiac.com or The Gluten-Free Mall's position on this topic, but you seem to have an anti-Celiac.com agenda here that is not based on reality, as you are completely ignoring the fact that we do cover this topic in detail. There are also many articles on Celiac.com dealing with corn.

I just read the original post -- I also received the email from the Gluten Free Society regarding gluten free breads.

The Gluten Free Society advocates removing ALL GLUTENS from the diet - Removing the glutens of all grains may indeed be important for some individual's health, BUT Celiac Disease is caused by the ingesting the gluten of Wheat, Barley, Rye.

Personally, I have thought that the Gluten Free Society's articles are misleading and would have been very confusing had I read them when I was first diagnosed with Celiac Disease. The learning curve of removing gluten (wheat, barley, rye) for Celiac Disease is tough enough without confusing the issue further with claims similar to the recent gluten free bread email. The GFS is one source of information regarding gluten -- but not the most reliable source for Celiac Disease. Note the difference in the names "Gluten Free Society" and "Celiac.com"

If a person has been diagnosed with Celiac Disease the removal of all wheat, barley and rye is imperative. If that individual does not improve after removing the type of gluten involved in Celiac, then they should look to food intolerance -- the best way to do that is a full elimination diet with detailed food/symptoms journal.

This site has the most helpful folks in the world to assist you with transition to living with Celiac Disease -- many have multiple food intolerance and are gracious enough to share their years of experience.

Hang in there the learning curve is long whether your health is improved by managing Celiac Disease or you find you have multiple food intolerances/other digestive health concerns.

I want to clarify my first post about this subject. I do ok with most corn products, but corn on the cob doesn't do me any good. That is probably because of the skin on corn kernels being hard to digest though. That's not unusual for all people though, it is common for corn on the cob to be hard to digest. That's actually why they make hominy, the lye breaks down the kernel skin so it is not a problem for people.

The GFS society guy article kind of turns me off because he is talking about gluten allergies. Allergies are an IgE reaction, while celiac is an IgG or IgA or TTG reaction. Smart people out there, please correct me if I messed that up. If the guy is a doctor and doesn't know that difference, I don't really trust anything he says. If he is actually talking about allergies in that article, it isn't really relevant to celiac disease then. But I think his article is confusing and mixing terms. It is possible to have both allergies to wheat and celiac disease though. It would be nice to which one the article is talking about.

I think there may be something to the issue of corn and celiac reactions though. The CSA (Celiac Sprue Association) published an article about research showing that oats can cause a reaction in something like 10 to 15% of celiacs a few years ago. So it is not just wheat, rye and barley for some of us. There are posters on the forum who can't eat oats, I am one of them. I used to love them though, ate them every morning. Rats, as they say. . What the hay I found plenty of other foods to eat instead.

That brings up another topic that you might want o read about. Leaky gut is a a potential issue for us that may lead to other food intolerances developing. Basically the gut in celiacs can sometimes let protein fragments into the bloodstream. That can cause other food intolerances to develop, IMHO. As you can see, I am too lazy to look up reference links for this idea so I put "IMHO" after my statement. But you can search on Dr. A. Fasano and zonulin (zonulun sp?) to find info. You may also read about rotation diets, that try to limit the development of new food intolerances or treat them when they have occurred. Well, never mind, I found a video of Dr. Fasano talking about leaky gut, on of all places, the GFS site!

There was research done a while back by someone in the celiac world who found that many supposedly naturally non-gluten grains were cross-contaminated during processing. I don't remember who did that research but someone else might. But the upshot was that if you buy a bag of regular corn flour on the grocery store shelf it has a good chance of having wheat gluten contamination in it. The problem is complicated. Farmers use the same wagons and combines and grain silos for many grains. Mills may use the same mill for many different grains too. And crops can be rotated in the same field and volunteers can come up from last years crop which might be oats in a wheat field or rice field or wheat in a corn field etc... Packaging equipment may also be used for gluten products and gluten-free products. Some companies wash down their products lines between runs to prevent cc. They call that "following good manufacturing processes".

It seems to me that corn may be like oats and affect some people with celiac similarly. But we are still learning about celiac, nobody has the all the answers right now. I suppose it makes some sense to err on the side of caution and tell people not to eat oats or corn when starting the gluten-free diet. They can always add those things back in later. As it is, I usually tell people not to eat dairy, processed foods, sugar, starches, soy, and alcohol when starting. That's a pretty tough change right there for many people. Corn and oats might be relevant for some of them also, but not most. I kind of agree that a warning about this should be in the FAQ or the newbie thread. Just because it is a small percentage of us that have those reactions doesn't mean we don't count. If I don't count I know Kareng or IH will tell me so full force! But really, we are a friendly bunch here and we do try to help new people get started and avoid the pitfalls that we all faced ourselves. That doesn't mean we can't try to do things better I suppose. I don't think a blazing banner on celiac com is needed though. This site is all about celiac and eating gluten-free, and learning to do that right. Anyone with a chronic, life threatening disease who can't spend a few hours learning and reading about it is in for a rough road. I am not picking on you here, but I think some people do just believe what their doctors say about don't eat bread, pizza, and donuts and go from there. They really need to come to a group like this that lives with celiac every day to get good advice about the gluten-free diet though. Most doctors don't know beans about living with celiac. The group here does and can really help.

The other thing that is often suggested besides an food diary is an elimination diet if things don't go well. An elimination diet can detect other food intolerances as long as you have symptoms form them. Enterolabs can also do some food intolerance testing. I don't know how reliable their testing is.

If you check out the signature lines of many posters here they list their food issues. That is another good way to learn about possible problem foods. I found all my food intolerances issues by doing elimination diets. They work good.

I do totally agree with Tom-head, the term gluten is confusing as it refers to all grains with a protein/carb molecule for storing energy. It is really not a specific term for molecules that cause celiacs to react, but is often used that way. When celiacs say gluten they generally mean wheat, rye and barley gluten. But other people may mean rice or corn or some other plant.

One thing you said kind of struck me. You said you are want to get rid of celiac. I guess we all would rather not have a chronic autoimmune disease, but we do so we need to learn to live with it. After awhile doing the gluten-free diet and whole foods, you probably will not find it such a problem, and may even enjoy eating a healthier, wholesome diet. I know I do like it much better than all the junk food I used to eat. Most of the processed foods you get in stores are full of chemicals and preservatives and food colorings and stabilizers and homogenizers and GMO's, and nuclear waste material they couldn't find a state to take. Well, maybe that last one is made up, not sure on it really. . Now I have a short list of processed foods I eat that mostly have a very short list of actual foods in them. Very few chemicals.

There has been an effort in the USA to pass more stringent gluten-free labeling rules for foods. Right now they (FDA) have the rule about listing the top 8 allergens, but they are working on rules about gluten-free labeling. The FDA is way behind on that effort, they let it sit for years and did nothing. Some activists got it moving again though. All the gluten-free labels and things you see on USA foods are voluntary at the moment. Some companies are real good about their gluten-free labeling..

Food intolerances are a complicated issue and they are not the same for everybody. The Newbie 101 thread and FAQ thread have some good starting info though.

Sorry for the length, fingers got carried away a little!

Here are some threads that may help you with getting started. There is a lot of learning to do when starting out as a celiac.

(from page 2) For those of you who are eating corn and feeling great, I read on this, and other forums, that if you are a true celiac even the smallest amount of gluten can cause damage to your intestines, whether or not you feel the damage. If corn contains gluten aren't you concerned about that? If not, why?

"Gluten" is the science word for grain protein. It is also used by some international manufacturers of grain products to mean any sort of protein flour. Of course corn contains 'corn gluten,' because it is the protein in the inner part of the seed. But Corn's gluten is DIFFERENT than wheat's gluten. Wheat's is more complex, has more chromosomes, and behaves differently in baked goods, it is more elastic and rubbery.

Corn(aka still called Maize in Europe and Africa, from the Spanish word for what the Indians in America called it) isn't wheat, corn isn't barley, corn isn't rye, corn isn't spelt, which are from the Triticum family, which were domesticated in the Middle East, and are the grains which cause a celiac reaction. Corn, maize, zea mays, maiz, mahiz, has 10 chromosomes. It is the domesticated first in the Americas from the teosinte family, and was grown in Southern Mexico, Central America, and Northern South America since approximately 7000 years ago. About 4000 years ago it began to be cultivated in the southern part of the western United States, in Arizona and N.M, whereby it then began to spread north. http://en.wikipedia....ki/Maize#Origin

Domestic (grown in North America, USA) corn can still be cross contaminated with wheat, rye, barley, spelt, or other grains or soy or oats at different times during the harvest and processing phases. THAT is what is most likely causing "corn" reactions, altho any individual can have any sort of food intolerance. Or food allergy.

I'm not clear on why we are zeroing in on one company, Schar. Corn by itself is hard to digest. If you react to it, don't eat it but don't slam a company for their product. Corn is in a lot of products including many medications. We can't blame everything on celiac.
Just saying.............

We do not really know why the OP chose to single out one company and this website for selling that company's products.

This is from Schar's Facebook page today:

"' Schar gluten-freeGluten-free Fact of the Day:Corn has been used by manufacturers in gluten-free products for many, many years and we too use corn in our products. At Schar, we not only manufacturer our products in a dedicated gluten-free facility, but we also isolate and test all of our ingredients before they are allowed into the facility for any potential contamination. This would include all corn ingredients. "

This is as good as it gets!

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"Children in a family are like flowers in a bouquet: there's always one determined to face in an opposite direction from the way the arranger desires."~Marcelene Cox